The device family delivers a combination of high performance, extensive integration, advanced functionality, and power efficiency making it suitable for edge AI computing.
Each device features up to five cores and the i.MX RT700 includes the first instantiation of the eIQ Neutron NPU in a crossover MCU, accelerating AI workloads by up to 172x, while reducing energy per inference by up to 119x, according to NXP. These MCUs also integrate up to 7.5MB ultra-low power SRAM and offer a 30-70% reduction in power consumption compared to previous generations.
AI-enabled edge computing devices have created demand for additional compute power and new functionalities and with most of these devices being battery-powered, there’s a need for MCUs with much lower power consumption.
The i.MX RT700 crossover MCU addresses this with a low-power, multicore design that incorporates powerful graphics capabilities, AI hardware acceleration, advanced security and a sense compute subsystem and delivers a family of solutions with multimodal capabilities like presence sensing, gesture recognition and voice control, for example, on a single unified platform.
Commenting Charles Dachs, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Industrial and IoT, NXP, said, “The i.MX RT700 provides significant enhancements in power consumption and efficiency, enabling breakthroughs that extend battery life and ensure reliability in resource-constrained applications. Additionally, the integration of our eIQ Neutron NPU enables customers to build innovative machine learning applications, improving AI and multi-tasking capabilities of low-power edge devices.”
The i.MX RT700 crossover MCU family features up to five computing cores. This includes a primary Arm Cortex-M33 running at 325 MHz, with an integrated Cadence Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP for more demanding DSP and audio processing tasks. It also features NXP’s eIQ Neutron NPU, enabled with the eIQ machine learning software development environment.
The family scales up to a best-in-class 7.5MB of ultra-low power SRAM with zero wait-state access. The i.MX RT700 also includes an ultra-low power sense compute subsystem with a second Cortex-M33 and integrated Cadence Tensilica HiFi 1 DSP. This removes the need for an external sensor hub, reducing system design complexity, footprint and BOM costs.
In a move designed to unlock the potential of AI on constrained devices like MCUs, the eIQ Neutron NPU efficiently accelerates AI inference by offloading the workload from the Cortex-M33. This allows the eIQ Neutron NPU to accomplish tasks more quickly, compared to running these tasks on the Cortex-M33 alone. With 7.5MB of onboard SRAM, i.MX RT700 can execute more complex multi-modal AI tasks that would be challenging for traditional microcontrollers.
The i.MX RT700 family is designed to optimise power consumption and is said to deliver a 30-70% improvement compared to previous generations. This is accomplished through a series of power architecture innovations, such as advanced adaptive deep sleep techniques and optimised clock architectures with low-power cache schemes. As a result, end devices can either extend their battery life or can use smaller batteries, allowing more design flexibility.
Additionally, the i.MX RT700 family enhances system performance and flexibility with an integrated, high-efficiency DC-DC converter, basic memory management unit and supports improved analogue peripherals. It’s also NXP’s first crossover MCU to support the emerging eUSB standard, enabling USB 2.0 interfaces to operate at I/O voltages of 1 V or 1.2 V instead of 3.3 V.
Cybersecurity and privacy for smart connected consumer devices are now more important than ever, especially with upcoming cybersecurity regulations such as the US Trust Mark and the European Cyber Resilient Act. The i.MX RT700 family offers an accelerated compliance path to these regulations and other security standards for consumer devices, including ETSI 303 645.
Cyber resilience and protection of consumer’s data are critical and this crossover MCU integrates an EdgeLock Secure Enclave (Core Profile), providing smart devices with advanced security functions, including secure boot with battery saving mode, secure update, seamless memory encryption and secure access to data. It also features strong device authentication with built-in physically unclonable function (PuF).
The i.MX RT700 crossover MCU family is currently sampling for qualified early-access customers.
